Happiness is what drives us to live and keep doing… whatever it is that we do now. We have aspirations and dreams, but they all come down to happiness. We wish we could be happy when we finally become a celebrity, buy a house on the hills, have a wedding by the beach, etc., etc.
But such happiness, the eternal and pure one, is somewhat non-existence. It’s a utopian dream. We can never be truly, purely happy. The good lives with the bad. Even on our ‘perfect days’ there will be something slightly ‘wrong’ or upsets us.
The idea of happiness brings us to a pain-free existence when our emotions are flowery all the time. But pain is something we can’t avoid. Most of the times, we feel pain due to external factors. We can deal with pain, yes, but we can’t avoid it. At least, not completely.
There will always be a time when the pain gets to us. When people or situations hurt us, deliberately or not. Pain is inevitable and that is a fact we have to live with.
But it’s not that you can’t ever be happy. Maybe ‘happy’ is a heavy standard to pursue, but satisfaction is not. It is measurable and reachable enough.
The idea of satisfaction or being satisfied is a state where we could accept our present situation as bearable, if not peaceful. Satisfaction does not pressure you not to feel pain or trying to eliminate it altogether. It can also be defined as feeling enough. Isn’t that all of humankind’s problem? Never feeling enough?
Satisfaction projects a state where we accept our current situation, with the pleasantness and unpleasantness. The idea of it will bring us to properly exploring our potential and creativity, keeping good relationships with people (whom we love and we despise), managing a household, being interested in our surroundings (political, economic, social, environmental issues). These activities won’t make us eternally cheerful and bubbly. We will still feel irritated sometimes, if not most of the times.
But when we are satisfied, when we feel enough, we will be fine with feeling irritated. It sucks, but it’s fine.